


The Words Lose Their Meaning

by youalwaysfollowthehose



Category: The Hour
Genre: F/M, Major Character Injury, a bit of sad stuff hopefully some fluff later, first fanfiction for The Hour, post 2.06 fic, spoilers for all two series of The Hour
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:48:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youalwaysfollowthehose/pseuds/youalwaysfollowthehose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continues straight after 2.06 faded to black. Spoilers for 2.06. After the attack on Freddie, the team start to deal with the aftermath of his injuries and blowing apart a national scandal. Bel's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the words lose their meaning

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a short scene after I'd watched 2.06 for a second time, however it soon grew into this long, three chaptered fic. I hope you enjoy reading it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team of The Hour wait nervously for news of their beaten colleague after accompanying him to the hospital. Everybody keeps saying: "he'll be fine," but Bel Rowley starts to doubt them. Chapter 1 of 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my little army of betas, the response when I asked on The Hour tag on tumblr was amazing:  
> troublewithhisnoncomplacence.tumblr.com  
> Katie (sherlokidinthetardis.tumblr.com) also My_Beautiful_Idiot on A03  
> queenofcapaldia.tumblr.com also RandallsRedTie on A03  
> You guys are all amazing!

Nobody expected it to end up like it did. 

Bel was there from that first moment, she stumbled bare-footed across the grass. Mud and then blood stained her stockings; her heels lay forgotten on the pavement. He was already on a stretcher when she slumped down beside him. A blanket was pulled up to his neck but underneath it she could still make out the impression of his twisted body. Tears pricked her eyes as he turned his head towards her, a faint flicker of a smile on his face. With each wheezing breath blood bubbled to his lips and trickled slowly down his chin. His lips mouthed soundless words and his left hand grasped pathetically out of the blanket towards her. She took it; it was slick with blood. 

“Oh God,” her voice seemed distant, lost in the wail sirens and the gruff business-like attitude of the ambulance men. “Oh God, oh God, oh God...” 

A comforting hand pressed down on her shoulder, Bel turned around and Lix was standing behind her, her face grey, the elder woman shivered against the cold. 

“They need to take him, darling,” she said. “Let him go.” 

Lix’s cold fingers eased Bel’s out of Freddie’s. “There you go.” 

Bel wasn’t sure if this was directed to her or to the men, her knees shook and her breath hitched in her throat as Freddie’s voice drew quieter and further away. 

“Moneypenny...”

The tears building up in her eyes now flowed in thick streams down her face, taking with them eyeliner and mascara. Lix pulled Bel towards her, whispering that everything was going to be okay, he was going to be fine. She cried into her shoulder until Randall’s voice was added to the mix of distant, echoing sounds. He brushed the sleeve of a coat against her arm. 

“Take this, go with him.” 

She pulled herself out of Lix’s embrace and took the coat with a shaking hand. He eased her arms into the too-long sleeves and hooked the straps of her shoes over her outstretched fingers. Lix dapped at Bel’s eyes with a tissue. 

“He’ll be fine, darling,” Lix added as she scrunched the tissue up, the slight break in her voice gave away her fears. 

“We’ll follow in Hector’s car.” 

With that she was running stumbling half blind towards the lights, her toes sunk into the muddy grass and her legs shook with fear and exertion. When she arrived her breath came in raggedy gasps. A tall, dark haired policeman stood in front of the doors. 

“I’m Bel Rowley, his partner , I mean producer, just...” she babbled at him. 

He nodded sympathetically to her and took her hand, helping her up the step into the ambulance. The inside smelled of disinfectant and blood and exhaust fumes. The tall man escorted her to a seat in the corner. She couldn’t see Freddie from the men huddled around him. The small box like interior of the ambulance felt incredibly small, too intimate, too constricting. Bel breathed in deeply as she tried to calm down, she didn’t want to be so close to him, yet held back in case something...in case _that_ happened. 

The tall man shut the ambulance doors and as the roar of the engine rumbled through the small vehicle, he sat down beside her. He shifted in his seat, unsure what to do. He was young, too young to see something like this. 

“He’ll be fine,” he said but sweat beaded on his brow and his voice shook.

That was all anybody had been saying and the words had lost any comforting meaning by now. Instead they just passed her by like light drizzle on an autumn day. Expected and accepted but not recognised.  
The ambulance journey was the longest of her life, during it she felt as if her mind has separated from her body. Her consciousness was up there, somewhere by the dim bulb on the ceiling; spinning and spinning further upwards with each groan, whimpered call and rustle of bandages. 

A sudden rush of noise and bright lights dragged her downwards, back into herself again. She wiped her eyes and stood up as the men started to wheel Freddie past her. The blanket was now around his waist; his shirt was open revealing bloodstained bandages covering his rib cage, and his left arm was strapped across his chest. As he passed, his eye snapped open, rolling back and forward as he struggled to focus on the scene. Once the eye had locked on her for a few seconds, he stopped clenching and unclenching his fist and splayed his fingers towards her. Tears had carved pinkish tracks through the now dried, copper blood encrusting his face. She brushed her finger tips down his bruised forearm, trying to soothe him in any way possible. His skin was cold, frightfully cold in fact. 

“You’ll be fine,” she said, not believing the words.

A crack of a smile flittered over his face as more tears seeped from his eyes. Then he was gone, down the ramp of the ambulance and through the doors into the hospital. Bel pulled her heels back onto her feet, the feet of her stockings were ripped and covered in mud up to the ankles. Grass stains and small clots of dirt covered her knees and her hands were covered in Freddie’s blood. She could smell it on her, iron and rich dirt, all a bit too raw, all a bit too real. 

She walked down the ramp unaided and followed the stretcher into the hospital. As Bel blinked against the harshness of the lights, the men went straight through, nurses in white dresses swarming around. Orders were barked around her. She suddenly became aware of the eyes of the fellow patients watching her, some from stretchers, some clutching drips, some with bruises and cuts and scrapes – none covered in grass and accompanied by a policeman. They took Freddie into a side room and closed the door before she could reach it. 

“Can I see him?”she asked the young policeman. 

“You’ll have to wait, find a seat.” He looked her up and down. “Are you okay?” 

He placed a hand on the top of her back, she shrugged him off. 

“I’m fine.”

She found a seat in a quiet spot where the corridor branched off into another. He sat down next to her. 

“Miss,” he began, raising an eyebrow.

“Rowley, Bel Rowley,” she wrung her hands on her lap. 

“Does he have a next of kin we should inform?” 

She swung around, suddenly defensive.

“He’s not going to die.” 

The policeman shook his head. 

“We’ll need to tell them that he’s been injured.”

“He has a wife,” Bel picked at the blood ingrained in her fingernail. “They... I don’t know where she is, she - she left him little while ago. Her name is Camille, Camille Lyon.”

“Thank you, we’ll try and locate her.” 

The policeman stood up, and held out his hand for Bel to shake. She shook it unsteadily. “We’ll see you again in the morning Miss Rowley, to update you on everything.” 

All she could do was nod; she just wanted him to leave. She just wanted to break down and sob until she was raw, to curse and bless that stupid, stupid boy all the way from here to God knows where. He was reckless and spirited and was always supposed to be able to dodge that bullet, to calm that storm – to live. Hot, salty tears were beginning to form again - she should have taken Lix’s handkerchief but instead she blinked them away. 

No. She would not cry, not like this, not where everybody could see. 

The policeman had left now. She heard his voice followed by Randall’s and Hector’s further down the corridor. They were here. Even with all the rage and fear and love she felt, she didn’t want to be alone right now. 

“She’s down there,” the policeman said, his voice closer. 

Lix, Randall, Hector and Marnie turned around the corner, worry etched into all their faces. Lix clutched a new packet of stockings underneath her arm. They all took seats in silence, not really knowing what to say. 

“How is he?” Hector asked after a few tense moments. 

Bel shook her head and pulled Randall’s coat tighter around her. 

“I- I... He was conscious on the way here, but now, I just – I just don’t know...” The words coming out of her mouth sounded distant, like she was prepping a story, discussing the brute facts after she’d become desensitised to the brutality ingrained in them. 

“He’ll be fine,” Hector reassured her; he reached out a placed a hand on Bel’s knee. “He’ll be fine.” 

There they were again, those empty, empty words. 

“Isaac wanted to come, so did Sissy,” Randall started. “But he said he needed to go home to see to his mother and she was worried Sey wouldn’t know where she’d gone.”

“It’s okay.” Bel nodded. She understood. 

The team fell back into silence, Marnie clutched Hector’s hand tightly and Lix and Randall looked at each other nervously. Lix’s knees knocked together underneath her long coat, the stockings lay on her lap and she stared at them as if they’d just appeared there. Randall constantly adjusted his tie, pulling it up and down and twisting the knot in a nervous manner. 

Marnie sniffed loudly. 

“I’m sorry,” she started. “It – it’s just so terrible. I _talked_ to that man, I sat in his club and drank his champagne and ate his food then he went and did that, he did this to Freddie.” Marnie shook her head, her pretty features twisted in a mixture of anger and pure disbelief. Hector wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. 

“It’s okay, darling, it’s okay.” 

Just by looking at his lined, pained expression Bel could tell it was far from it. Randall wasn’t any better, sweat shone on his brow under the harsh lights. He’d removed his tie completely now and folded it neatly across his lap, the same amount of space on each side. Randall lifted it up and placed it beside him before returning it to his lap. He repeated this movement a few times before taking his glasses off and burying his face in his hands. 

Lix placed a hand on his shoulder, he recoiled slightly from her touch and she withdrew. 

“It’s none of our faults,” she said, then, turning to Bel and picking up the packet of stockings from her lap. “I brought these for you, darling, in case you wanted to freshen up a bit.” 

Bel nodded in gratitude.

“Thank you but I’m fine, I – I don’t want to miss it if they have news.”

Lix nodded back and placed the packet on the chair next to her. 

They fell back into silence, realising that empty reassurances were doing nothing. Patients came in and were discharged, clattering stretchers whizzed past in blurs of colours and sound down the corridor. Randall paced and Lix looked down at the floor. Marnie mentioned that she was hungry and Hector and her went to get chips for everybody before the shop closed. Bel accepted the offer even though she wasn’t hungry. 

Before Marnie and Hector returned, and under Lix’s reassurance that she’d make the doctor wait if he came, Bel went to the small toilet at the end of the corridor to wash her hands. The lights inside were dimmer and the mirrors cracked. She turned the hot tap up to full and lathered soap across her palms, his blood peeled away from her skin in flakes, turned to liquid and flowed, pinky-brown down the plughole. She watched it go and looked at her face in the mirror. Her eyes were red and her lips pale. Not bothering to use the cubicle she slipped the dirty stockings off. Her knees were grass strained and the bottom of Randall’s coat encrusted in mud. She clipped on the clean stockings and composed herself. 

“He’ll be fine,” she repeated in the mirror, trying to put on a brave face. “He’ll be fine.” 

Right now she wanted to believe it. 

When she got back to the corridor, Marnie and Hector had arrived, clutching four packets of chips in grease-stained packaging. A strong smell of fat, salt and vinegar filled the corridor. They were wrapped in the morning’s newspapers, dotted with pictures of Hector and sensationalist headlines about the sex scandal. Bel looked down at the folded report; it seemed like an age ago. 

She picked at a chip, took a bite and gave up as a wave of nausea passed over her. Nobody else seemed hungry either; Bel suspected Marnie had just wanted an excuse to escape the stifling atmosphere of the waiting room. Within an hour the cold chips were festering in the rubbish. 

The time ticked away slowly, Randall started to order the health leaflets on the table beside his seat, Lix stayed with her eyes fixed on the floor. Marnie and Hector had fallen asleep on each others’ shoulders, Hector’s jacket draped over the two of them like a blanket . Bel couldn’t sleep; her mind span with worst-case scenarios.

Footsteps coming down the corridor interrupted her thoughts; she looked up to see a smartly dressed doctor standing above her. She rose to her feet, her legs stiff from sitting so long. Lix looked up and Randall stopped fiddling with the leaflets. 

“Is he okay?” she asked. 

The doctor nodded solemnly.

“He’s stable, things are looking a lot better than before, that’s all I can say for the moment, sorry” he smiled reassuringly. 

Bel’s breath hitched in her throat. 

“But will he be okay?”

“It seems like it, his injuries are no longer life-threatening. We’ll keep him here overnight and then move him onto the ward tomorrow.” You can see him if you want,” Lix and Randall also stood up, the doctor raised a hand. “Just one sorry – he needs his rest.”

They nodded and sat back down again. Hector and Marnie were now awake. They looked at the doctor and Hector pulled her close. He looked up and shot her a look like the one he’d given her in the office, the one that said: _go, go be with him._

She followed the doctor down the corridor and into Freddie’s room. The lights were dimmed and she could just make out the shadow of his frame lying on the bed. As she drew closer his rasping breaths became audible. A bandage covered his head and his neck was encased in a brace. If anything his face looked worse now. With the blood wiped away, bruises in purple and black and blue had room to bloom, linked with bridges of stitches holding scarlet flesh together. His jaw was swollen and his nose broken, through his slightly open mouth she could see his left incisor was broken half off . 

The door clicked shut and her breath caught in her throat as the doctor closed the door behind him, leaving her alone with Freddie. Bel glanced up at the chart above his bed. Head wound, broken jaw, four broken ribs, back injuries, broken arm, bruising, lacerations, leg broken in two places, the list went on. 

She swallowed and sat down on the chair beside the bed. 

“Well, you’ve been in the wars, haven’t you James?”

Her voice sounded artificial, too reverberant the in the small room. Freddie didn’t reply, he just opened one eye and looked around the room. A note of fear passed over his face. Bel stood up and walked to the side of the bed. She took his hand, stroking the skin and kissing his knuckles one by one. 

“You’re safe, you’re home.” 

A single tear rolled down his cheek, his breathing hitched and turned into a whimper. She just wanted to lift him up, to take him in her arms and press kisses to every part that hurt. She just wanted to make it all go away. Lying before her she didn’t see the same boy who’d jumped on the beds at Marnie’s country estate or the man with the scruffy beard, tailored suit and French wife who’d walked back into her life. Even the man who’d kissed her mere hours ago was no longer residing behind that eye. He was broken, a shadow of what he once was. 

“Moneypenny,” his voice came out in a hoarse whisper turned into a hiss through the bandages on his jaw. “Stay... I...” 

That was all he could manage before his voice gave out. 

“I’m here,” she whispered as she brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes and pressed kisses to his knuckles. “I’m here, you’ll be fine.”

She started to believe in those words again, there in the dark room with his pulse beating a slow rhythm against her fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Freddie is still recovering in hospital with Bel by his bedside, and the team start to deal with the aftermath of his injuries. Will Bel tell Freddie about the letter? How will their relationship develop from here?


	2. the words stretch on for eternity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the hospital Freddie lies unconscious, his friends pay visits and Bel keeps her lonely vigil as they all try to deal with the events of the past week. Bel's world shrinks to his room and fitful dreams in her bed at night - the rest of the world's news doesn't seem to matter much anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this chapter has turned out to be a lot larger than I expected and I apologise for the length of time it has taken me to publish this. It was hard to write and I'm not completely happy with it but make of it what you will and I hope you enjoy reading. This chapter is betaed by the lovely [Katie](http://sherlokidinthetardis.tumblr.com/) also My_Beautiful_Idiot on A03 thank you for fixing all my grammar mistakes.

Two days later, Bel sat next to Freddie’s bed in the near deserted ward, the sun streamed through the window, dappling the white sheets in speckles of light. He slept peacefully. Bel hadn’t heard his side of the story yet, nor did he know that the story had been successful. The drugs had kept him asleep for most of the time he’d been here. 

When she’d arrived this morning, a few stray cameramen and reporters were camped outside the hospital doors. They didn’t ask about Freddie, they were more focused on Clienti , corruption and sex scandals involving Mr Hector Madden. That all seemed far, far away now. Another story would come and their interest would fade. Freddie was what mattered now. 

Lix had come round earlier that day with a flask of tea for Bel and a small bunch of flowers for beside Freddie’s bed. Bel noticed she seemed on edge, jittery about something. She sat down next to Bel and started to remove the flowers from their packaging. 

“Tulips,” she’d said. “Tulips seemed best, not too flashy.” 

Bel nodded in agreement as Lix placed the flowers in a vase; she stood up and placed them on the table. 

“How is he?” she asked.

“He’s good as good as he can be,” Bel replied. 

Lix fussed with his sheets and plumped up the sides of his pillows. Bel watched her as she brushed the hair away from the cuts of his face. 

“Oh my beautiful boy,” she whispered. “What on earth did they do to you?”

She stood there a while, fists clenched, lost in thought. With a sigh she sat back down, Bel noticed tears pricking the corners of her eyes. She dabbed at them with a hanky. 

“Disinfectant,” she mumbled. “Always makes my eyes run.” 

Bel nodded, she let her have her excuse. 

“We could have done something,” Lix said.

Bel shook her head.

“No, we couldn’t have. He would have gone no matter what we did.”

Lix exhaled and smoothed down her shirt, she looked at Freddie, lying broken and bruised, deep in thought. Bel wondered what would have happened if Freddie hadn’t gone, if he’d just been rational and not so bloody stubborn. Where would they be now? Running through the rain to grab a sandwich at lunchtime, sitting in the office smoking cigarettes and drinking whatever Lix had brought in? Or falling headfirst into another story; into more dangers; into something that would eventually lead to this? Bel’s world had shrunk over the past few days, to this too hard green chair and to fitful dreams on top of the covers at night, the phone by her side. The news didn’t seem so important anymore. 

“I should get back to office, darling,” Lix said, her eyes softened and she cleared her throat. “I hate hospitals; all the ones I’ve encountered seem to be just an inch away from being a morgue.” 

Bel could tell by the look in her eyes there was more to this statement, but she didn’t push for a straight answer. As she stood up to go, she tapped the flask sitting on the side table. 

“I put a bit of whiskey in that,” a smile flashed across her face. “I thought you might need it.” 

She kissed her fingers and pressed them to Freddie’s forehead before she left. “You’re in safe hands,” she whispered. 

When Lix left the room was quiet again, apart from Freddie’s breathing, and the pitter-patter of rain outside. Bel let it lull her into a trance. She thought of the London streets outside, of the damp, sweet smell of city rain and the click, clack, splash of heels through puddles. Tiredness overcame here and she started to doze. Sleeping hadn’t come easy over the past two nights; it helped to have him beside her so she could hear if he needed anything. As she closed her eyes, the images of London outside gained shape and form, her thoughts shifting and solidifying into matter in the world of dreams. 

“Bel!” 

The buildings of the city crumbled before her, as though to an earthquake from the force of the shout. She jumped up and looked over to the bed. Freddie was sitting up two inches off the pillow, drenched in sweat, his IV line pulled taut; the stand teetered, threatening to fall. 

“Bel?” he called again, his voice hoarse. 

She was beside him in a flash; she cupped his cheek in her hands and whispered:

“I’m here, I’m here.” 

“Oh god...” he mumbled, the rest of the words disappeared into a hiss of breath, he closed his eye. “I...” 

Bel helped him lie back down in the bed; her heart lurched as he let out a low groan. He looked awful. The bruising on his face had faded a bit from red to purple, dappled with yellow and brown in some places. His now greasy hair stuck up in random places where the bandage allowed it to and a trace of stubble dotted his upper-lip. Freddie tried to roll over, found he couldn’t and gave up. 

“Everything hurts,” he mumbled through gritted teeth.

Bel looked at him, suddenly alarmed. 

“Are you okay?” she asked. “Do you want me to get the nurse?” 

He mumbled again and moved his eye from side to side.

“No... No,” his words were stilted, like those of a drunk. “Just, just stand over there, where... see you.” 

Bel moved reluctantly to the end of the bed, a slight smile appeared on his face.

“Freddie?”

“Have, have I told you,” he stopped and swallowed, the movement looked painful. “You - you are very beautiful.” 

Bel laughed, but apprehension still lingered at the corner of her mind. 

“You are delirious.”

“Mmm not,” he whispered. “You really – you really are the most beautiful woman, I have ever seen Bel Rowley.” He lifted a finger as much as he could. Bel felt a blush rush to her cheeks. “Your face, it’s very, the same on both...” 

His voice gave out, he tried to cough but it came out more like a hiccup. His face twisted in pain. Bel walked back to the side of his bed and stood beside it. 

“You need your sleep, James.” 

Making light of it, using childish nicknames helped her. They seemed to draw them out of this world, this grey, real world into the hero-saves-the-day-world of Casino Royale where he would be fine, he would be back on his feet and everything would be fine. The bad guys had lost and the good guys would prevail. Freddie exhaled deeply and closed his eye. 

“Moneypenny?”

She pulled the covers back up around his neck, and moved the pillow so it lay better under his neck brace.

“Yes?”

“Be here when - when I wake up?”

She took his hand.

“I will be.”

His face twisted into that little half smile again. Then he settled and his chest rose and fell more slowly as he slipped into sleep. He looked content even through all the bruising and broken bones. Bel couldn’t help but smile. 

He slept for the rest of the day, even when Hector came around. Bel dozed in the chair and he touched her lightly on the arm to rouse her. 

“Evening,” he said, as she rubbed her eyes and stretched. He stopped by Freddie’s bed, his eyes wide and a look of horror on his face.

“Jesus, what did they do to him?”

Bel shook her head.

Hector hadn’t seen Freddie since the attack; he’d been tied up in television interviews and talks with the police and press. The golden boy had to regain his reputation. 

“Freddie, Jesus Christ.” Bel could see him shaking with anger through his thick coat. “Why didn’t you run?”

Bel looked down at her feet, that question had been ringing in her head ever since she’d seen him lying on the grass. 

“That’s never been his way.”

“Did he ask about the story?”

Bel shook her head again.

“No, not yet, he’s been asleep most of the time.”

Hector sighed and sat down; he ran his fingers through his hair. Bel could tell by the patches of red under his eyes that he hadn’t slept. His hand shook against the arm of the chair. Suddenly aware of it he pulled it close to his body. 

“I heard about Commander Stern,” she said.

Hector’s face paled, he pulled his hand closer to him.

“Marnie took it badly,” he said. “She was close to him - we were best friends, why wouldn’t she be? The two of us had just got in, Marnie was making coffee when they called and told us the news. It was some policewoman. I don’t remember her name. I..” His eyes filled, wiping them away he stopped and composed himself. “I – I wish I had ended things on better terms.”

Bel wrung her hands together, keen to share a worry that had plagued her in the long, lonely hours by Freddie’s bedside.

“I can’t stop thinking it’s our fault,” Bel started. “That he did what he did, what happened to Rosa, what happened to Freddie...”

Hector touched her arm gently.

“It’s not.” 

Bel didn’t reply, she just looked towards Freddie, she felt responsible for him, for Rosa, for Stern. No matter what Hector said, it wouldn’t make any difference. She just wanted somebody to acknowledge what they had done – two lives gone, many more broken because of them. 

No. 

It was at that point she had to stop herself. What they did, what Freddie did saved more people falling prey to Cilenti’s hands, what they did exposed corruption and scandal to the public. This thought alone, this tiny, tiny thought, was the one thing that kept her sane about all this. 

“Are you okay?” 

Bel looked up to see Hector leaning forward in the chair, his chequered suit strained across his chest and worry glinted in his eyes. 

“Yes, I’m fine.”

She wanted to say she wasn’t. That she was scared, angry, so goddamned angry with what had happened to him, but she didn’t. “I’m fine” was enough.

“Have you slept; you don’t look like you’ve slept?” Hector asked.

“Neither do you.”

Hector sighed. 

“It’s been a rough few days, I can watch him if you want to go and get some lunch or...?”

“I’m fine,” Bel interrupted. “I’m really fine.” 

Hector nodded, but Bel could tell by his pained expression he didn’t believe her. He stood up and brushed down his suit; he swayed a little and steadied himself on the arm of the chair. 

“I should get going, Marnie is all torn up and Randall will want me to show my face at the office.” He cast an arm around the room. “I’ll tell him how things are.”

He walked over to Freddie’s bed and stood there, not really knowing what to say, finally he chipped in:

“He always though he was a coward, didn’t he? Deep down... He always had to prove himself, always had to fight...to fight to be better than somebody like me or you.”

“It’s just the way he is,” Bel added. Hector placed his hat on his head and smiled sadly.

“Too afraid to run away, that’s what makes a hero. It fits him perfectly.” 

*** 

The next day, once visiting hours commenced, Bel resumed her vigil. She slept badly the previous night and went to the office for the first time since Freddie’s attack. The rooms and studio seemed bare, lacking life without him. Freddie’s unoccupied desk was dark and lonely, still littered with papers about the case – nobody had the heart to clear it. Isaac brought a piece of quiche that his mother had baked, which she ate as she walked the streets to the hospital. Lix and Randall were doing fine, sorting things out and preparing scripts for the program airing in two weeks. She’d left them sitting in his office, surrounded by paper and serenaded by ringing phones. 

Things weren’t any better at the hospital. When she arrived the nurse told her Freddie had been restless during the night and that they’d upped his pain medication. He did look worse, pallor crept across his skin and his hair lay damp with sweat. 

The night had brought two other patients to the room: an elderly man who rasped and gasped through his oxygen mask and a middle aged man with a gash across his face and heavily bandaged knuckles. The only man who came to see him came dressed in police uniform and sat in silence, he showed no emotion as he flicked through the pages of a paperback. A stern looking elderly woman kept watch over the other man, she also never spoke. She held the older man’s hand and stroked her fingers over his shoulders when he sat up, mask dangling from his chin as he coughed and coughed. Once he settled and she started to doze she shot angry looks at Bel whenever Freddie surfaced for a few moments and moaned or whimpered before the morphine dragged him back down under the water again. 

Bel started to feel like she was drowning. 

The days passed, the scarred man left with butterfly stitches across his nose and a young woman pulling an overstuffed, hastily packed suitcase, by his side. The elderly man stopped coughing and sat up to eat his bland looking hospital meals while his wife read to him. Still, Freddie lay motionless apart from the occasional whimper, moan and cry of Bel’s name. 

By the seventh day, she just wanted to scream at him wake up, wake up! A few seconds and a whispered word would be enough. But he didn’t.

***

Lix came around with a box of sausage rolls and a letter eight days after Freddie’s attack. Lix’s eyes were bright, too bright for a situation like this as she walked into the room. By the time she laid eyes on Bel and Freddie the fire in her eyes dimmed to embers then burnt out completely. Her makeup was pristine and Bel couldn’t smell whiskey on her breath, just the faint tang of aftershave on her clothes. 

“Another food parcel from Isaac’s mother,” Lix said as she placed the packet down on the table. “They’re good; I ate one on the way here.” 

She sat down on the chair and sighed. 

“Darling, you look terrible.”

Bel just shook her head. 

Lix passed the letter across from her. The envelope was post-marked “France.” 

“I didn’t open it,” Lix said. “Randall thought we better let you do it.”

“The police contacted her then?” 

Lix nodded.

“A few days ago apparently.” 

With shaking hands Bel opened the letter and started to read: 

_To Bel Rowley_

_The police called me, I am sorry to hear about Freddie. I write this by candle-light in a tent just outside Paris, I am at an anti-nuclear rally with Michael, Anne and Phillip. At present I will not be able to return to London._

_He has you now, doesn’t he? I’m sure he’ll be safe in your hands. What there once was between us died as soon as he stepped back into your office. The nights in Paris by the Seine could not be replicated elsewhere. As soon as we got back to the dank grey streets of England, to his one bedroom home with a mattress on the floor – it was over. We were a fling, a fling between two lost and lonely people. I cannot be defined by him anymore. I need to do things for myself._

_We are different, him and me. I want to do something to change the horrible, horrible news that happens in this world. He is content to just process it, to report it, to share it around to the people of this world. I need to act._

_Look after him Bel Rowley. It’s what he wants after all._

_Camille_

_PS I should be in London in three weeks, I will come by, pick up my stuff, give my regards to Freddie and be off again. I’m sorry it has ended up like this._

Bel folded down the letter and exhaled deeply.

“She’s not coming back, at least not yet.” 

Lix placed a hand on her shoulder. By her expression, Bel could tell that she knew the situation. 

“He knows?” she asked.

Bel nodded. Lix exhaled slowly. “Well that’s, that then.”

“Apparently.” 

She put the letter back in the envelope. Bel was certain Camille didn’t understand - not doing anything, how was getting beaten within an inch of your life not doing anything? Distance always made events seem less dramatic, for example the stories she reported on, scenes of death and destruction and chaos, they just appeared to her like characters, like events from a book. You processed them, internalised them but never really knew what it was truly like to _feel_ them. That’s what she concluded about Camille, if she could see him now, lying there motionless and deathly white, Bel was sure her opinion would be different. 

“I got a call when I was at the office,” Lix started. “From Angus McCain, he asked whether himself and Miss Delane could call by. He apologised for not coming sooner but she wanted to wait until things died down a little, I think.” 

Bel looked up from picking at her fingers nails. 

“That should be fine,” Bel replied. 

Lix nodded, she brushed a hand through her hair. 

“I think she thought you blamed her, darling.” 

“I don’t.” The words jumped out, too quickly, almost defensively. 

Bel looked down again. In a way she did. She blamed her for not telling her where he’d gone, not telling her to call to police right away before he was dragged by cronies through London and dumped on the lawn. But now, that anger has dissipated, turned into a numbness that was slowly maturing into gratitude - Kiki was brave enough to confront Clienti and expose this scandal. Without her, it would have dragged on, claiming more lives, possessing more souls and, like a monster only grown stronger. 

The air in the room had become thick, weighed down by her tiredness and the constant tang of disinfectant used to obscure the smells of death and decay. 

“He looks better,” Lix observed, trying to break the shell of awkward silence. “That must be good.” 

Bel nodded, he did in a way, but however it felt – it was nowhere near good. 

*** 

Miss Delane and McCain came around the next day. Angus looked younger, he seemed to walk with a renewed spring in his step and his eyes sparkled under his glasses. Kiki walked behind him wearing a light pink dress and a fur trimmed coat, she looked tired but there was a smile on her face. She took Bel’s hand as they both took seats beside Freddie’s bed. Bel had only glanced at the papers over the past few days but she was on every cover. There was a new strength awakened in her eyes, but they filled with tears when she saw him. His bruises were fading a little now and the cuts healing however he was still a shocking sight to see. 

“Oh God,” she whispered under her breath. “Oh God, oh God...”

Bel squeezed her hand and forced a smile. 

“He’s okay, he’s really okay.” 

This was more to reassure herself than Kiki. 

Angus placed a comforting hand on Kiki’s shoulder. 

“Is his wife not here Miss Rowley?” he asked, pushing his glasses up his nose. 

“Urgent business,” Bel replied. 

Angus smiled and nodded.

Kiki looked at Angus then stood up and walked over to the side of the bed. She ran a hand over the sheet, not wanting to touch him, like he was china ornament or a fragile book that would crumble to dust at the slightest movement. 

“We did it,” she whispered. Her shoulders heaved and her voice broke. Kiki composed herself and brushed her fingers lightly across Freddie’s hairline. “We all got out, and now we can all move on.”

He moaned softly and Kiki took a step back. Bel felt her legs tense as she prepared to jump up to fetch a nurse. 

Then he opened his eye. Bel jumped up, all the emotions of the past week building and churning inside her. 

“Freddie…” She called. 

He looked sideways, his eye focused on Bel and his mouth twisted into that half smile that she hadn’t seen in what felt like an eternity. He then looked over to Kiki. 

“The story,” his voice sounded hoarse and scratchy and was barely audible. “You, you got it? You went back.” 

She nodded. 

“It’s over,” Bel said, stroking a hand across the contour of his cheekbone. “It’s all over.” 

He gave that half smile again and with his good arm, he clenched his raised fist slowly in a gesture of celebration. Behind his open eye Bel saw a flash of the old Freddie appear, just for an instant like a comet across the night sky. 

*** 

Over the next week he got stronger every day, the doctors reduced his morphine and he started to sit up in bed. Bel felt energy start to return to her limbs, she made less frequent trips now, stopping in her lunch-break and for a few hours after work. 

“I feel like a dog just come from the vets,” he said pointing to the brace around his neck. “Cone of shame.” 

He laughed, but it had a tone of sadness to it. Now he was conscious he heard the doctors talking; could feel the missing teeth in his mouth with his tongue and understand he was never going to see out his bad eye again. Outwardly, he smiled broadly during her visits but inside she could tell he was falling apart. They’d known each other long enough for her to understand. 

“He’s doing well,” the smartly dressed doctor said on her visit thirteen days into his hospital stay. “You can probably go home soon Mr Lyon.”

Freddie just nodded to that, he looked tired and his open eyelid drooped and fluttered as he started to nod off. The doctor lent him back against the pillows, smiled at Bel and moved on to the other patients in the ward. 

Freddie sighed and rubbed his free hand across his eyes, he moved it down, pressing gently against the plasters dotted across his face. 

“Stop touching them, Freddie,” Bel said. “The doctor said it’ll only make it worse.”

He removed his hand from his face and eased it down by his side.

“They’re itchy,”

Bel stood up and pressed a kiss on an uninjured part of his face. He laughed softly. 

“Better?”

“Mhmm.”

She pulled the chair closer to the bed; the setting sun cast rippled orange shadows across the sheets. Freddie closed his eye and lay back. 

“Bel?”

She pulled the blanket up around his neck and arranged his IV line so it lay straight beside him. 

“Why hasn’t my dad been to visit?” he mumbled. 

Bel felt her heart drop to her stomach. She placed a hand on-top of his plastered arm. 

“Freddie, he – he can’t...” 

He opened his eye and a note of realisation passed across his face. Bel didn’t know what to say.

“I – I um, forget things now, I know – I know, sorry, it’s just...”

Freddie closed his eyes again, his bottom lip quivered and he clenched his fist. 

“It’s okay,”

She pressed a kiss to the top of his head and brushed his hair back from the bandage. “It’s okay.” 

Bel knew it was far from it, tears pricked her eyes as his breathing became slower and he slipped into sleep. 

***

She left him sleeping and walked through the cold streets of London, packed with commuters and business men to get home to her cold house with the sticky door. The optimism of him waking up and talking had dissipated, leaving behind the harsh reality of his injuries. Bel poured a glass of vodka and flopped down on her sofa. Her un-sent letter lay open on the table. 

She took a sip out of the glass and let the alcohol warm and numb her. Bel lent back in the chair and picked up the paper, the left side was crumpled and the ink was smudged in places with dried teardrops. The words from the letter had been dancing around in her head since the letters from America had arrived. 

_I’m the coward Freddie, not you._

That phrase haunted her. What if she’d just gone to America? Where would they be now: working in American news, or doing something completely different? Would they be married?

Bel laughed sadly and took another gulp from the glass. She looked down at the last paragraph of the letter: 

_Now, soon and maybe your courage will make me brave too._

She placed it back on the table. The house was deathly silent. Seeing Freddie in the hospital for the past two weeks, broken and bruised and battered, she’d seen his courage slip away like sand through splayed fingers. Once he came home, there wouldn’t be the doctors to rely on, the constant supply of morphine and the reassuring beep-beep of monitors. The thought of him going back and lying immobile in his damp Notting Hill flat made her stomach turn. 

Bel took a deep breath and finished the glass of vodka. She knew, somewhere deep inside her she was going to have to locate her courage to get him through this. The words: “he’ll be fine,” and “I’m okay” stretched on into eternity, turning more into religious verses, something Bel believed in with blind faith, but with no solid facts to make them bloom into truths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this. I am aiming to get chapter 3 written before I go back to school on the 7th however I have exams when I return so it may not be posted until after the 16th of January. 
> 
> Next Chapter: Freddie returns home, however his inability to work and the physical strain of his injuries start to take a toll on him. Will he ever work for The Hour again? Will his relationship with Bel survive these hardships and a flying visit from Camille? Will Lix and Randall confess their love for each other? Where will Kiki and Angus go from here? The team also hear news of Hector and Marnie's expected child.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are interested, I post updates on how this fic is going [@ lixstorrm.tumblr.com](http://lixstorrm.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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